Turkey Dinner: Good For You, Bad For the Planet?
Every Thanksgiving, people in the United States consume millions of turkey dinners. Here are the health benefits and environmental implications of a typical one.
Transcript
On Thanksgiving day the United States of America will
consume an estimated 46 million of them. A recent study from the University of Manchester in
England, concludes that a typical turkey feast for eight people produces
approximately 44 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.
The life cycle of
the turkey alone makes up 60% of the total carbon footprint. The remaining
percentage is attributed to growing the vegetables, food storage, consumer
shopping, cooking the meal at home and waste management.
But don’t cancel
the dinner party just yet. Turkey dinners are full of health benefits:
A 3oz serving of
turkey provides 25 grams of protein. About half of the daily recommended intake. A turkey dinner has about 24 micrograms of selenium. There are around 196 milligrams of
phosphorus in your turkey serving. Turkey dinners offer a handful of B vitamins.
And, Tryptophan , the stuff that people think makes
you sleepy, is actually an essential amino acid.
Happy Thanksgiving!
